My dog always ends up being my subject for portraits. I thought these ones came out pretty cool. The first one I think could have been more focused on the eyes, but the second one I thought was cool. Any other suggestions? Editing tips?

So far I feel like I'm making leaps and bounds in photography, but my lenses aren't very capable and I have much to learn. C & C though please.

I'm using a d40x with the two kit lenses (18-55 and 55-200), this was taken with the 18-55 zoomed all the way out to 18mm to get the distortion. I had it set to aperature priority with an aperature of like 3.5 and let the camera do the rest including the pop-up flash. I thought it really shows the "why the long face?" look my basset has.

Hehe, these shots reminds me of those old school jazz club photos but with a basset hound instead of a sax player LOL! I really like the second one, they both kind of have a funny and slightly depressing feel at the same time. Great DOF

On the positive side, you did shoot from the level of the dog which is good. There is however no reason for these to be in black and white and they do not meet the tone and lighting requirements of a quality black and white shot. They also seem considerably cropped which should not be necessary if there was care taken with angle and background.

Stick to colour and look at www.photoinf.com for guidelines on composition in photography.